


Sheriff Stars & Cowboy Spurs

by IntrovertedWife



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cowboy Hats, Dragon Age AU, M/M, Sheriff - Freeform, alistair cowboy, cowboy, cullen sheriff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22334506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntrovertedWife/pseuds/IntrovertedWife
Summary: Cullen's a cowboy. Alistair's a cowboy. This is a story for Voidtaken to encourage her to draw more cowboy hats.
Relationships: Alistair/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Sheriff Stars & Cowboy Spurs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VoidTaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidTaken/gifts).



Candlelight glinted off the tin star tossed to his desk. Sand and the grime of time blackened the outside that would only take a bit of elbow grease to clear off, but he didn’t see the point. The blood of his predecessor lingered in the S of the badge — a grim reminder of how he got the job and what future awaited him.

“This is why I don’t drink at night,” Cullen moaned, wiping at the five-day scruff peppered across his cheeks. Dark desert winds howled through the scraps of wood he nailed to the windows. They rattled as if the ghosts of a thousand lawmen before him whispered that only death awaited those who traveled between the canyons.

He eyed up the half-finished bottle that grew smoother with each glass. Never a good sign, even on a better day. Cullen picked up a cork that’d served as his missing bishop and crammed it into the neck of the bottle. There wasn’t anyone else to cut him off so he had to police himself.

“Well I no, nay, never…”

Ignoring the slurring sound of a dying horse attempting to sing, he shuffled through the bounties stacked on his desk. In his younger days, he’d have pursued them as surely as any Ranger. But that fall from a spooked horse put an end to his free-range days and trapped him behind the desk. He was respectable now, a proper lawman. As much as one could be in a town with two bars, two brothels, and one church to forgive all that sinning.

“No nay never, no more!”

If he had it his way, he’d be in his small cottage cooking a mess of beans by the fire. Maybe re-reading through the stack of books Miss Josephine brought him one long winter. But no, he had to be here, presiding over the jail proper.

With a groan, Cullen rose to his feet. He tugged on his trusty duster, true to its name as the once black leather faded to a dusky gray from years of service. Only the red clay of the land gave it a hint of color. Affixing the tin star to his chest, he paused from grabbing his hat. Cullen stood taller and wiped the back of his hand over the sign of law and order. It didn’t gleam justice, but a hint of law did shine through the dirt.

“Will I play the wild rover…”

The horrendous singing paused at the creek of the lawmen’s boots outside the cell. Barely any lantern light reached inside, only a sliver highlighting the ripped up boots of the man reclining on the bunk. He had one leg crossed over the other, the toe of which kept twisting back and forth as he sang.

A black cowboy hat shrouded his face, which he kept twisted down to hide in the shadows of the cell. Not that it mattered. Cullen recognized him from his posters in an instant and didn’t hesitate to drag the man in instead of letting him sober up in the water tank. All of his gear, including the holster holding a revolver worth the sheriff’s annual salary, hung upon a nail out of reach. It left the man in nothing but his long underwear, which didn’t seem to bother the drunk one lick.

“No never—” the drunkard sang at full volume.

“Knock that off!” Cullen shouted.

The song paused and the man tipped up the edge of his hat until an eye of pure malice gleamed at him. Cullen watched a tongue slowly slide out to lick along chapped lips. Certain that he’d made his point, the Sheriff turned to leave, when a voice even louder than before cried out, “No more!”

Right. “I warned you,” Cullen said and hauled up the dousing bucket. Without hesitation, he threw the entire gallon of fetid, frozen water onto the prisoner.

The man ceased laughing at him as he screeched and leaped to his soggy feet. Water drenched his ivory underwear to a body that was deceptively toned. Drunkards should carry barrels for stomachs not chests.

“Hey,” he shouted in anger and finally raising his hat. The once whiskey-washed eyes sharpened to a piercing brown as he glared at the sheriff still holding the bucket. Slowly, he stared down at his pathetic state and the man laughed.

“Thanks for that,” he said, throwing Cullen off. The prisoner ran a hand up his stomach, wicking the water off and also tightening the soaked clothes to his body. Once wet, he brushed his hand across his dusky blond hair. “At Madame Rose’s they charge three bits for a quick rinse up.”

“All it cost you was your freedom,” Cullen snarled, not happy about the turn of events. He’d hoped for the man to be in a talking mood…and not about his exploits with the local girls.

“The bed’s nicer here too,” he kept on while shoving at the slab of wood strung up off the wall.

“I doubt that highly.”

“Someone’s never been on the trail before.” He cast the widest grin of his life setting the lawman’s teeth on edge. Could he not see that he’d already lost?

Maybe it was time to fully show his hand. “Do you know why you’re in here?”

He scratched at his chin in thought, thumbing across a pathetic spray of scruff that made him look more boyish than his poster. “Was it that piano I danced on?”

And shattered from his weight.

“No.”

“Hm. Oh, that rat bastard who tried to cheat me at cards. Ha, laughs on him, I was cheating too.”

That explained the reported fistfight and how one of the combatants snuck off into the night while the other remained behind to slap the ivories—as it were. “Not that either.”

The mischievous eyes narrowed and the thumb that kept shuffling through his chin scruff paused. “Have you ever been to Silver City?”

“No.”

“Then it can’t be for that. To be fair, the buffalo was like that when I got there.”

What? No. He was clearly playing mind tricks. Cullen snapped the wanted poster directly in the man’s face. “Is this not you?”

“Wow,” he exclaimed and yanked the paper out of Cullen’s fingers. It didn’t matter if he stole it. The sheriff had already sent a telegram to the Rangers. They’d be here in a day to take this problem off his hands.

The prisoner twisted the poster around as if to check the angles of the drawing. He grabbed the tip of his nose and yanked it up, then down before sticking his tongue out.

“So you admit that is you?” Cullen tried to keep on track, happy to write down the man’s confession and close this chapter.

“Do I always look so scowly?” he whined while holding the poster up next to his face. “Ugh, I’m a dangerous bandit here to rope your pies and wrangle your chickens.”

A low groan and sigh burst from Cullen at the same time. “Are you or are you not Alistair Theirin?”

“More or less.”

He paused in scratching out the confession to glare at the man. “What does that mean?”

“Sometimes I’m more, but most times I’m less.”

 _This man doesn’t know dung from wild honey._ And he was the second most wanted criminal in the state? It was laughable at best. “And you’re a member of the Grey Bandits?”

All this Alistair character did was shrug and continue acting stupid.

Cullen finished writing down the truth and muttered to himself, “Seems they’ll let anyone join.” With that information folded and sealed in wax to be handed over to the Rangers, he slipped back to his desk and away from the wanted criminal. It was hard to believe the man capable of robbing a wishing well never mind the dozens of trains the gang was tied to. But he wasn’t about to turn his back on someone that could be playing dumb, even if a proper bed—as empty as it may be—waited for him at home.

“So, sheriff man. Can I call you sheriff man or do they let you have names?” the prisoner asked. He paused beside the cell door, his hands hooked around the bars, but Cullen had nothing to worry about. There was no way he could reach his gear.

“What do you care? You’ll be on the long road to the gallows soon enough?”

“For a little piano destruction? Boy, they take their music seriously here in…where am I, anyway?”

He didn’t even know the town that ended his run of terror. How could such a criminal be so flippant about life? But then, that’s what they did. Rode from one town to the next, taking what they wanted, hurting whoever got in their way. Never caring about anything beyond themselves.

Never growing roots.

“It doesn’t matter. You will be marched before a judge. Then they’ll get the rest of your nest of vipers and walk them before the judiciary. Before you know it, your entire den of thieves will dangle from the trees.”

Alistair tapped his chin again as if he seriously weighed Cullen’s words. “Are you sure about that? I mean, yes, Judge Mac’s certainly gunning for this pretty neck. No argument there. But I want to circle back to the viper thing.”

“It says it all right here.” Cullen lifted up the poster and pointed to the long list of sins. “Theft, murder, assault, cattle rustling. There’s no arguing with the black and white.”

“Except, that’s where you usually find the grey.” The prisoner shrugged his soggy shoulders. Cullen sighed, prepared to return to the long chess game against himself, when the wall of the jail cell exploded. Dust erupted inward, blanketing the prisoner from view. It blew Cullen off his feet and sent him rolling out of his chair. Half of his jail vanished in the debris, but he wiped continuously at his eyes and rose. A shadow in a long coat walked into the ripped open cell.

“Why are you wet?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Free wash up?” Alistair said with a laugh.

Oh no. He was not losing him. Not now. Cullen took a step forward, only for his bum knee to buckle. Shit!

“Well, come on,” whoever busted him out said. There were women in the gang? The posters made no mention of that.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Cullen shouted, “under order of the sheriff.” He hooked a hand under the desk and rose just as he aimed his revolver at the prisoner.

At the same moment, the dust settled enough to reveal the woman holding a shotgun, both barrels pointed at the last line between order and chaos. “I wouldn’t if I were you, lawman.”

“It’s okay,” Alistair said, and he pushed away her gun. She glared at him, but he turned to face the man prepared to fill his chest with lead. “He believes in it. Law, duty, doing what’s right. All those shiny things on that tin star pinned to his chest. Pst, Sheriff, if you want to keep on the real side of good and right, I wouldn’t listen to Judge Mac Tir or the rest of his goons.”

“Alistair, for shit’s sake already,” the woman shouted. She turned on her heel, dashed out of the jail, and up onto a horse. Probably stolen.

“Sorry,” he called with a quick wave but kept speaking at Cullen.

“If you move an inch, I will kill you.”

“Funny thing. That poster you had said Dead or Alive. Coulda had yourself a much easier time of it if you’d shot me outright in the saloon. So I’ll take my chances.” Grabbing his hat, Alistair gave a small tip of it and said, “Til next time, Sheriff.”

And, despite the gun cocked and ready to rip apart his guts, the prisoner turned his back on the lawman and dashed out the hole. Cullen held his spot, his heart thundering to fire at him. He was a dangerous prisoner. He had to be stopped.

He deserved a trial.

What if he was telling the truth?

“Damn it!” Cullen cursed, stepping back from the empty and useless cell. Horses hooves churned above the dark night of cricket song as the two fugitives fled into the hills. It’d be impossible to follow in the moonless shadows, but no rainclouds circled above. They’d leave prints a man raised in the deserts could track.

Gritting his teeth, Cullen rammed his old hat on, filled his satchel with food for a long journey, and left a note for the Rangers. As God as his witness, he was going to bring Alistair and the rest of the Grey Bandits to justice.


End file.
